The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1887-06-03
LIEUT. GREELYIg SURPRISE.
HE'S ALWAYS SP7fEGtHG QUEER wEaTH.
Err OR INVENTIONS ON. THE PUBLIC.

Texas Life-Filling Telegraph Insulators
with Hornets and Turning on the Warm
Weather Faucet-Angry Linemen.
suppose that Brig. Gen. and Chief
Signal Officer .Adolphus Weather-pro.
phet Greedy thought he was very funny
when he sent that Lapland blizzard
over here Monday to put us all in
congestive chill If so, would like to
inform him privately that his reputa-
ton as humorist in this town win get
a chronic case of mango if he infests
us with another joke of that kind. 1t
may be that the Generals meteorol ogy
got little mildewed during the several
pleasant seasons he spent at the North
Pole, and that he thinks it Is the proper
caper to give the country a January
freeze-out in the midst of an April
thaw; or, perhaps, he contracted a lik-
ing for Esqumaux climate, and prefers
his balmy and ethereal spring trimmed
with unexpected and superfuous bursts
of blue-nosed weather, but l can tell
him that when the average Citizen-at-
work is pining for early flies and as
paragus, ne doesn't enjoy stopping
around in wet feet or going with chat
tering teeth to a premature grave.
Easter Sunday Gen. Greely was all
right. He gave US clear, millinery
weather and plenty of it, and although
several dozsn of our most beautiful
dudes were wilted by the heat, no one
ventured a complaint But after this
tropical touch, what did he mean by
sending out such measly, Virgins
bill of fare as this:
"For the middle A!5@S;stic States, Miz-
zards,t cyclones, frost, snoU, rain, hail,
sleet, a0tth local areas of SIush; rising,
falling or stationary barometer; wind
~ E., S. W., or calm"
Does he think that after giving us
Sunburn and freckles, and getting us out
of ulsters and in the way of juleps and
other straw nurishment, this is nice
sort of thing to practise on long suffer
ing community Are we going to have
any sudden brigadiers swelling around
and triflihg with our holiest rights in
this wanton and piratical manner? Is
this his idea of fun, raising merry Cain
all over the country with his low-down
Manitoba episodes, when the humble
citizen wants to wear a blue necktie
and go a fishingP The weather last
week was pretty good for bullfrogs but
that's the best that can be said of 1t.
| hate to tell tales out of school, but
if Gen. Grcely doesn't tone down his
ideas of spring little | viii narrate an
incident of his brief career in Texas.
He came down there in November,
1875, to build telegraph line to San
Antonio from Fort Brown. He had an
insulator which he and other experts
had gotten up in Washington especial
ly for this line. 1t consisted simply of
a well-lacquered sheet-ron cap over a
dry wood screw, and had the general
appearance of tomoto can on the end
Of a broomstick when in position.
Well, the line was built-400
miles Of it-and for two weeks or a
month. it worked like a dream. Sud
denly warm weather came along, and
when warm weather strikes the lower
Rio Grande it takes hold for keeps.
The thermometer crawled up to 100, and
after several weeks of this spell the line
began to get mysterious kinks in it
There was trouble somewhere. and
plenty of it The line wasn't down,
but it seemed to have lost its grip on
through messages. San Antonio had to
do its business with Fort Brown by re-
laying at Laredo. In a few days Lare-
do could only telegraph as far as Ring
gold Barracks, south. on to Fort Clarke,
north, and through messages from San
Antonio to Fort Brown had to stop off
three times EN- route and take rest AT
the end of week the trouble was
worse yet Lieut.. Greeiy-he was
plain lieutenant then-sent couriers
galloping up. and down the whole cir
cut. They couldn'ttin find place where
the wire was down or in contact with
trees or anything. But they reported
something queer with insalators
Lieut.. Greedy was wild with indignant
surprise. The idea Of an .'insulator"
going wrong which had been concoct-
ed in Washington especially for Texas!
Still the telegraph line wasn't working
any better as telegraph line than as
fish-line or clothes-line, SO he bor-
rawad . ,1It,la Y.s,na tho uuartermaster